Patriotic Dish Towel Pillows

Are you getting your home ready for the 4th of July holiday? I love pulling out my red, white and blue decorations each year. Inside and out, my home is getting ready to celebrate America’s birthday. This year I’m adding a few new touches to our porch. These new additions include a couple of DIY Patriotic Dish Towel Pillows.

If you are like me, a trip to Target would not be complete without a quick stroll through the Dollar Spot. I’m usually on the hunt for office supplies and seasonal decor treats. A couple of weeks ago I found a lonely pair of patriotic dish towels, begging me to bring them home. How could I say no! They jumped for joy and quickly hopped in my cart. I brought them home and placed them on my cutting table in the studio. They were happy to be in a quiet place, away from all the kids that were throwing them to and fro. But their rest only lasted for a short time. I had a plan to transform them and I even had a couple of little hands to help me.

Dish Towel Pillows … the Tutorial

The transformation of these dish towel pillows is very simple. For this tutorial you will need the following items:

I’ve included links to the actual tools that I use and recommend. (affiliate links)

These are the dish towels I purchased … $3.00 for both. They have a nice waffle texture and the blue towel has a nice embroidered USA monogram.

The first thing you’ll want to do is remove the seams from all four sides. If the towels you are working with have a waffle texture, be careful not to pull the threads from the towel itself.

Press the edges open so that you have a flat dish towel.

The waffle texture gives the towel a lot of extra stretch. To control this, I chose to apply a light-weight fusible interfacing to the back of each dish towel.

Once the interfacing is applied, you’ll want to “square up” your towel. Trim the edges so that the corners of the towel are straight right angles.

Decide which shape you want your pillow to be. I chose more of a square shape for the blue dish towel, and a long rectangle bolster for the white dish towel.

Fold your dish towel in half, right sides together and pin your raw edges. Begin sewing on the bottom of your pillow, leaving a 3-4″ opening for turning and stuffing. back-stitch when you start and end. Sew a 3/8″ – 1/2″ seam all the way around the pillow, stopping early to leave the opening.

Before you turn inside out, trim the corners on the diagonal. This will decrease the bulk in the corners to give you a nice point.

Turn the pillow case right side out, using a pencil or pen cap to bring the corners to a point.

Once the dish towel pillows are stuffed, pin the opening closed and whip-stitch closed using a needle and coordinating thread.

That’s all there is to it! These two dish towel pillows took less than an hour to finish, and that included stopping to take a ton of pictures. And the best part, they cost less than $10 to make ($3 for the dish towels and about $6 for the stuffing.) Put your new pillows on the couch or add them to the rocker or bench on the porch. Your new dish towel pillows will bring you many years of festive decor.

Did you enjoy this tutorial? I have an extra special treat for you. Just wait until you see these fabulous DIY Patriotic craft and decor projects, and best of all, some outstanding recipes. Your home will be the envy of the neighborhood with all of these great ideas!